Self Affirmations
by MissJayne
Summary: A short series of amusing oneshots and drabbles starring our favourite characters.
1. Responsibility

_A/N: These quotes were given to me by Aunt Kitty, and hence this little series is for her. Happy birthday, my lovely. While I've written it after completing Every Day Quotes (which I'll post in 2012), I'm posting it now as a little taster of what's to come next year and to give myself a break from writing an average of a month a day *keels over from exhaustion* And I wonder why I keep running headlong into block…_

Self Affirmations

**I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs raised an eyebrow as two of his agents staggered into the squad room. If he hadn't had a call from Agent Smullen to inform him that his suspect was in custody and were his agents okay?, he would have been on his feet and barking at them.

He gave them a second look. Tony was limping, favoring his right foot, while Ziva had a nasty gash on her forehead. Briefly, he wondered if he should send them down to Ducky before discarding the idea. Ziva would rather collapse in front of everyone than admit she was injured, and Tony would spend the rest of the day basking in Ducky's attention.

He glared at them, not needing to put his order into words. Immediately, they began speaking.

"This is all Tony's fault!"

"This is all Ziva's fault!"

He gave a subtle nod to Ziva to encourage her to go first.

"The suspect tried to hare," she began.

"Rabbit," Tony interrupted, only to be glared at by an ex-marine and Mossad assassin. He wilted in fear.

"And so we chased him," Ziva continued, happy Tony was not going to interrupt her again.

She was wrong. "We were on a building site, boss," Tony added helpfully.

Ziva kicked his bad foot as subtly as possible. Tony whimpered but remained standing. "Tony tripped over a loose brick."

"It was hard to see it," Tony commented. "The light hid it, and I was trying to keep my eyes on the suspect. Jeez, boss, I swear the guy must run every day like Ziva. I twisted my ankle."

"He was not that fast," Ziva promptly contradicted. "But Tony fell over an obvious brick, and I fell over Tony."

"I don't see _how_," Tony crowed.

She glared at him. "All of your limbs went in separate directions, as far away from your torso as possible. Your left leg caught my right knee and knocked me over."

"She caught her head pretty bad on another brick," Tony noted. "Got blood everywhere."

"It is only a scratch."

Gibbs felt Ziva would declare life-threatening injuries 'scratches'. "Who got the suspect?" he demanded, deciding he would spare the one who got the job done.

They both winced. "One of the construction workers saw us fall," Tony explained. "And he tackled the suspect to the ground."

Gibbs nodded. How was it possible these were his best agents?


	2. Normal

_A/N: Signs you're a forensic scientist... I swear, everything in this is true. Except I'm still okay with rice (but I might be in the minority)._

**In some cultures what I do would be considered normal.**

Sometimes, Tim McGee wished he had never wanted to be a field agent, or Agent Gibbs had never accepted him on his team. Right now, he would much rather be stuck behind a desk in a windowless and airless room, surrounded by computers and other geeks than in the great outdoors, in a picturesque beauty spot with the sun shining on his head.

And not because of the dead body. Because of the crawling, faceless blobs on the dead body.

Corporal Larsson had left this world a few days ago, judging by the appearance of the maggots. And the maggots weren't behaving as though they were in some kind of television show, one or two scattered around various parts of the deceased. No, there had to be a thousand of them at least, all congregating in various parts of the soft tissue. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears – anywhere warm and easy to consume. They wiggled in packs of at least fifty, with only the odd one on its own. They constantly moved, they gave off a disturbing amount of heat and smell, and they looked like moving blobs of rice.

The egg fried rice in his fridge was going in the trash the moment he got home.

He had been assigned to collect a sample for Abby. In this case, a sample meant forty from every maggot mass site, half to be killed now and preserved, half to be reared up back at the lab to determine a surprisingly precise time of death. With Ducky's permission, he would have to turn the body over to see if there were any maggots underneath. He would need to photograph his work, stick thermometers into the wriggling masses to get a temperature, chase any fully-grown flies with a useless net, and label everything with mountains of information in case the specimen jars became muddled.

He swallowed hard. He needed a stronger stomach.

And he would definitely need a stronger stomach when they began to stink the whole lab out when Abby grew them.


	3. Power

**I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.**

Abby always knew when something was up with _el jefe_. She wouldn't be the favorite if she didn't have _some_ insight into him.

Except this time, she couldn't even persuade Tony that something was wrong.

Gibbs was continuing to stalk into her lab, demanding answers while bribing her with Caf-Pow! and kisses, expecting difficult answers on almost impossible deadlines, but there was something subtly different about him. She would have sworn he was staring at her when he thought she wasn't looking at him – she had even caught him in the act once or twice. Unfortunately he had reverted to standard Gibbs behavior and ignored her questions.

He also seemed to be arriving in her lab faster than usual. She was well aware of his talent for appearing either just before or just after one of her babies delivered a result, yet he seemed to have sped up recently. Now he appeared a full five seconds before her babies dinged, his psychic powers on overdrive.

And his tone! She was certain his tone of voice had changed. Usually, he didn't bark at his Goth. But he had definitely snapped at her in the last few weeks, more than once. It had been difficult to take; her silver-haired fox was normally so placid around her.

She pulled herself up straight. She was a scientist, not some fluffy person who would happily speculate about anything. In order to get to the bottom of this, Abby needed to observe Gibbs in a different environment, to see if he had changed solely for her or if whatever it was had affected his entire behavior.

It was time to stake out Gibbs. From Timmy's desk.


	4. Employed

**I no longer need to punish, deceive or compromise myself. Unless, of course, I want to stay employed.**

Tony hated report writing. It was probably why while he pulled pranks and gossiped, his teammates got their work done and were allowed to go home.

He couldn't focus when they were in the squad room with him. They were far too distracting. McGee needed to be poked and prodded; it was his duty to the Probie. And Ziva worked better when she was arguing with him, he was certain of it.

So while he was assisting his co-workers, he didn't have all that much time to get his own work done. Which was why, when he didn't have a date, he could regularly be found in the Navy Yard after hours, catching up on his paperwork when no one was around.

Tonight, or perhaps this morning considering it was after two, he was working on his report into the Kingston debacle. It was a tricky one to word. How to explain picking the lock to search an apartment without a search warrant. Oh, the door was ajar when they arrived and they were concerned for his safety. He scribbled his standard response down before he forgot again.

Ziva had been dangerously glaring at the suspect in the car before they had arrived at the Navy Yard. He didn't need to mention that, did he? After all, she hadn't _said_ anything. The full night he and the others (excluding Gibbs who had disappeared) had pulled to hunt for any leads? No, that would be reported to whoever paid his overtime. Tony himself being attacked by the suspect's five year old when it became clear they were about to arrest his father? He wasn't mentioning the bruises in his report, not a chance.

He sighed with relief as he reached the end of it. The acceptable version at least. Perhaps tomorrow night (tonight?) he would be on a date and could tell the real version to someone.


	5. Control

**Having control over myself is nearly as good as having control over others.**

Jennifer Shepard put her head in her hands and wondered why she had ever wanted to become Director of NCIS. At the moment, she was refereeing a shouting match between Gibbs and Fornell, which, for some insane reason she didn't dare ask about, was being conducted in her office.

"This case is mine," Gibbs argued with his usual amount on finesse. "Dead marine."

"Who staggered into the FBI headquarters and expired on our floor," Fornell shot back. "If he had staggered to the Navy Yard with his knife wounds, it would be all yours. But our janitors are cleaning up his blood – he chose us to investigate!"

"No, he chose to bleed all over your nice clean floor and scare your visitors away. Nowhere in there did he say he wanted _you_ investigating."

"Oh, and I suppose you would love to die on our turf just to annoy us."

Gibbs nodded happily. Jenny privately agreed, although she was more worried about him dying on purpose in her office or her study, just to inconvenience her.

"Take it up with the Attorney General," Fornell snapped at Gibbs. As one, the two men turned to her expectantly.

She resisted the urge to sigh. Great. How had this turned into her job? Wasn't she supposed to be able to control at least one of the men in front of her?

"Bring me coffee," she demanded. She needed them to leave and she needed caffeine in her system. As the door closed, she sighed. Time for the same argument to be repeated, this time over a phone line.


	6. Intuition

**My intuition nearly makes up for my lack of good judgment.**

Tony knew his current predicament wasn't really his fault. His gut had simply failed him for some unknown reason.

Gibbs' prime suspect had disappeared. After putting out a BOLO and trying to locate the man himself, Tony had decided he needed a coffee break. Perhaps he could blame Ziva, as she had demanded he bring her a Berry Mango Madness in response to his putting superglue on her keyboard.

His usual coffee haunt didn't serve the Israeli's precious drink. Knowing he couldn't return without it and keep all his fingers, his search had taken him to the other side of DC. Where he had seen someone walking away from the coffee shop who looked suspiciously like their missing suspect.

Although Tony hadn't seen his face, his gut told him this was the guy. And so he had followed him for two blocks, taking his time to get close to him before tackling him to the ground.

The suspect did not want to come quietly. After much squabbling in the middle of the street, Tony had finally managed to subdue his opponent. A Metro cop appeared seconds later, but arrested Tony rather than the guy on the floor.

Apparently he had attacked an off-duty Metro cop in front of about a hundred witnesses.

He drummed his fingers on the cell wall. Waiting for someone to bail him out was incredibly boring. At this rate, he would be spending a full night in a cell. Why had his friends not come for him yet?


	7. Reality

**I can change any thought that hurts into a reality that hurts even more.**

"Is anyone up there? Hello? Mr. Palmer?"

Ducky wasn't entirely sure how he had become stuck, but he could think of better places to be. The hole was at least ten feet below the surface and rather damp. Not to mention PFC Langford was busy decomposing at his feet.

At least he was all in one piece and uninjured, and the various bugs that were happily consuming the deceased marine had no intention of coming anywhere near him for the moment. His bag was safe somewhere on the surface, and Jethro's team had to be somewhere nearby. Or if not yet nearby (as they had yet to arrive when he had been on the surface), they couldn't be far off.

Mr. Palmer also had to be close by, even if he had returned to the truck for further supplies when Ducky had fallen. The flashlight did not take ten minutes to collect; help would be coming soon. In whatever guise it may take.

Yes, things could definitely be worse.

And then it began to rain. Heavily. Straight into the hole. Ducky began having visions of drowning. The motley collection of insects that had been feasted on the dead body began to make their way over to him, most likely drowned by the water but still ruining his outfit.

"Hello?" he yelled again. "Help!"


	8. Personality

**I honor my personality flaws, for without them I would have no personality at all.**

Ziva knew she had some pretty big personality flaws. A standard refusal to accept she could be hurt in any way. Being prepared to blindly follow any orders given to her. A tendency to fall in love with unavailable men.

And a slight propensity to kill people who pissed her off.

She couldn't help it. Every now and then, when someone got on her nerves, her instinctive reaction was to rip them from limb to limb, or shoot them, or torture them with a paperclip. It was the way she had been raised, to express her anger and frustration by killing another person.

Her father had always smirked when he had learnt of her killing another co-worker, before officially telling her off. Since coming to America, she tried extremely hard not to kill anyone she worked with. She was not sure how long it would be before she was put on a plane back to Israel, but she gave the Director less than twenty four hours.

Not to mention Gibbs would come after her if she harmed anyone on his team.

Instead she had to make do with scaring the living daylights out of suspects and occasionally her co-workers. And every day she had to remind herself she couldn't just shoot someone for pissing her off.

Even if she never wanted to lose that particular flaw. Otherwise she would be left with very little personality at all.


	9. Voices

**Joan of Arc heard voices too.**

"Abby? What are you doing?"

Abby turned around to spot Tim standing in the entrance to her lab. "I'm having an argument," she informed him cheerfully.

The trained investigator carefully looked around her lab. "There's no one else here," he told her, stating the obvious.

"I know."

Tim stared at her for a few moments, unsure what to say next.

The Goth decided to help him out. "I was having an argument with myself," she commented, turning back to her computer and gazing at the latest mass spectrum she had achieved. Petrol. Most definitely. What percent was evaporated?

Timmy came closer, full of confusion. "With yourself?" he repeated.

She nodded happily. "You don't have arguments with yourself?" she asked. "I have them all the time."

"Sometimes," he admitted. "But it seems my arguments are different to yours."

"Sometimes I disagree with myself so badly, I stop talking to myself for the rest of the day," Abby continued. "Have you ever had a day like that?"

"Err, no." Tim looked as though he wanted to run screaming from her lab. She resisted the urge to giggle. So what if she talked to herself? So what if she argued with herself? At least she didn't hear other people's voices.

Yet.


	10. Judgmental

**I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me.**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was trying his damndest to not be judgmental about his bickering team. As best he could tell, Tony had placed a bucket of water in such a way that the next person to open the door to the male restrooms would be soaked, aiming to catch McGee but actually catching Ziva.

How had it come to this? These people were supposed to be adults, supposed to be highly trained investigators. They were supposed to uphold the law, not pull juvenile pranks on each other that only Kindergarteners would find amusing. And even small kids knew better than to bicker like this, especially in front of him.

He wondered what Jenny would say if he accidently strangled the lot of them, or found some way to send them all overseas while he stayed in the Navy Yard, close to his favorite caffeine supplier. Unfortunately, it meant he would have to break in a new team.

And they could be even worse.

But how could they be worse? He had one juvenile ex-cop, who slept with any woman with a pulse and only worked if someone breathed down his neck (preferably not a female, otherwise the two points had a high probability of combining). One Mossad assassin who attempted to bury all her emotions but still felt them, leading to the emotional confusion of a woman who had been brought up not to feel any emotion at all; an Israeli whose first instinct was to kill someone and disappear. And then he had a computer geek who was terrified of just about everything, allergic to everything else, and sometimes needed to be kept out of the field for his own safety.

He fought the urge to bury his head in his hands. At least he wasn't as judgmental as they were.


End file.
